AWS has made the R9g and R9gd EC2 instances generally available. Both run on the Graviton5 processor and are optimized for memory-intensive workloads . According to AWS, they deliver up to 25 percent more compute power per vCPU than the Graviton4-based R8g instances.
The new instances are designed for databases, in-memory caches such as Valkey, Redis, and Memcached, real-time analytics, and containerized Linux workloads on EKS, ECS, or Kubernetes. The R9gd variant adds local NVMe SSD storage, intended for workloads that require fast scratch space or temporary caches.
These days, there are far more such workloads than before. Large memory requirements are, you guessed it, commonplace for AI applications. In particular, accessing your own data can cause significant delays if it isn’t available in an optimal format, and especially if there are silos that make it difficult to find the right data. Switching to cloud instances that are well-suited for this can therefore significantly improve the performance of AI workloads.
Both R9 options are available in eleven sizes, ranging from medium to metal-48xl. The largest configuration features 192 vCPUs and 1,536 GB of memory, with 100 Gbps of network bandwidth and 72 Gbps to EBS. For the R9gd, local storage goes up to 3 x 3,800 GB.
What sets Graviton5 apart
The chip switches to DDR5 at 8,800 MT/s, compared to 5,600 MT/s for Graviton4. In addition, the L3 cache is five times larger, and network and EBS bandwidth double in the largest sizes. According to AWS, packet processing is up to three times faster.
The processor was announced in late 2025. According to Tom’s Hardware, it features 192 Arm Neoverse V3 cores built on a 3nm process, with approximately 180 MB of L3 cache and support for PCIe Gen 6. AWS itself reports that more than 120,000 customers are now running on Graviton.
Rollout by instance family
R9g is one of several types of Graviton5 instances. The M9g and M9gd instances became available earlier this year, followed by C9g and C9gd. All instances run on the Nitro System hypervisor, including the Nitro Isolation Engine introduced with C9g and M9g.
Migrating from R8g requires no code changes for most applications. The instances are available in US East (Northern Virginia, Ohio), US West (Oregon), and Europe (Frankfurt), via On-Demand, Spot, Savings Plans, Dedicated Instances, or Dedicated Hosts.
See also: AWS Graviton5 available via M9g and M9gd instances